'Tristram Shandy'

'Tristram Shandy'

BBC Films

The book: This 18th century story has been called one of the greatest English-language comic novels of all time. Why it's unfilmable: The structure -- or lack thereof. The book is theoretically about the life and times of one Tristram Shandy, but he's so prone to breaking off into digressions that he doesn't even get around to recounting his own birth until volume three. The movie: "Probably the best-known but-I-digress novel in English literature, 'The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman,' has inspired 'Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story,' surely the best but-I-digress movie this side of 'Adaptation.'" -- Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution "Trying to enumerate everything that's good about this movie could prove as labyrinthine a task as Tristram's storytelling itself." -- Dana Stevens, Slate

The book: This 18th century story has been called one of the greatest English-language comic novels of all time. Why it's unfilmable: The structure -- or lack thereof. The book is theoretically about the life and times of one Tristram Shandy, but he's so prone to breaking off into digressions that he doesn't even get around to recounting his own birth until volume three. The movie: "Probably the best-known but-I-digress novel in English literature, 'The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman,' has inspired 'Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story,' surely the best but-I-digress movie this side of 'Adaptation.'" -- Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution "Trying to enumerate everything that's good about this movie could prove as labyrinthine a task as Tristram's storytelling itself." -- Dana Stevens, Slate (BBC Films)

The book: This 18th century story has been called one of the greatest English-language comic novels of all time. Why it's unfilmable: The structure -- or lack thereof. The book is theoretically about the life and times of one Tristram Shandy, but he's so prone to breaking off into digressions that he doesn't even get around to recounting his own birth until volume three. The movie: "Probably the best-known but-I-digress novel in English literature, 'The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman,' has inspired 'Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story,' surely the best but-I-digress movie this side of 'Adaptation.'" -- Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution "Trying to enumerate everything that's good about this movie could prove as labyrinthine a task as Tristram's storytelling itself." -- Dana Stevens, Slate